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Tacitus and Poetic History: The End of Annals XIII

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2014

Charles Segal
Charles Segal*
Affiliation:
Brown University
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Extract

For classical antiquity the division between history and poetry is often arbitrary and misleading. The history-writing of antiquity not only subsumes what we would call political science, sociology, and psychology, but is also linked to epic poetry and to moral speculation on the good life and the good community. Just as Herodotus is not fully intelligible without Homer nor Thucydides without the tragedians, so not only Livy, but also Tacitus cannot fully be understood without reference to Virgil.

Like Gorgias or Apuleius, Tacitus also reminds us that the division between poetry and prose is more fluid in ancient than in modern literature. Scholars have long recognized Tacitus' debt to Virgil, especially in vocabulary and expression. Yet there is another, more elusive quality in Tacitus which is ultimately traceable to the influence of the great epic poet. This is the creation of an atmosphere around events which confers on them a weight, penetration, and richness of suggestion which the bare facts could not possibly convey.

Type
Research Article
Information
Ramus , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , 1973 , pp. 107 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Aureal Publications 1973

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References

1. For some interesting remarks on the narrowing of modern, as opposed to the ancient, view of history, see Percival, John, ‘Thucydides and the Uses of History’, G & R, 2nd Series, 18 (1971) 199–212Google Scholar, especially 210ff.

2. Sir Syme, Ronald, Tacitus I (Oxford 1958) 357Google Scholar; see also Goodyear, F. R. D., ‘Tacitus’, G & R, New Surveys in the Classics 4 (Oxford 1970) 39Google Scholar.

3. Otis, Brooks, ‘The Uniqueness of Latin Literature’, Arion 6 (1967) 185–206;Google ScholarBardon, Henry, ‘Un aspect méconnu du génie latin: le sens du mystère, RCCM 1 (1959) 7–14Google Scholar, especially 12–13. See also Kroymann, J., ‘Fatum, Fors Fortuna und Verwandtes im Geschichtsdenken des Tacitus’ (1952) in V. Pöschl, ed., Tacitus, Wege der Forschung 97 (Darmstadt 1969) 138Google Scholar and 151, who finds in Tacitus ‘etwas Dämonisches … in der unheimlichen Irrationalität des Geschehens und der furchtbaren Preisgegebenheit des Menschen …’ (p. 138).

4. Klingner, F., ‘Beobachtungen üiber Sprache und Stil des Tacitus am Anfang des 13. Annalenbuches’ (1955) in Pöschl, Tacitus (preceding note) 540–57Google Scholar, especially 541 and 556–7.

5. On the differences between subjectivity and objectivity in Tacitus and Thucydides see Kroll’s, Wilhelm excursus on ‘Direkte Und indirekte Charakteristik’ in his essay, ‘Zur Historiographie: Tacitus’, Studien zum Verständnis der römischen Literatur (Stuttgart 1924) 382–84Google Scholar.

6. See Kroll (preceding note) 369ff., especially 372–73: ‘Da nun der künstlerische Plan bei Tacitus durchaus auf grosse Gemälde gerichtet ist, in deren Mittelpunkt Personen stehen … so ergibt sich eine natürliche Kollision mit dem annalistischen Schema, und es werden allerlei Mittel nötig, um ihr auszuweichen.’ See also Mendell, C. W., ‘The Dramatic Construction of Tacitus’ Annals’, YCS 5 (1935) 53;Google Scholar Goodyear (above, note 2) 24; Syme (above note 2) I. 305.

7. Mendell (preceding note) 5–53; especially llff.; Goodyear (above, note 2) 22 and Borzsák, S., RE Suppl. 11 (1968) 484–85Google Scholar, with the bibliographies there cited; Syme (above, note 2) I. 306ff.

8. Norden, Eduard, Die römische Literatur6 (Leipzig 1961) 93Google Scholar.

9. See Koestermann, Erich, Cornelius Tacitus Annalen, III, Buch 11–13 (Heidelberg 1967) 329Google Scholar(ad 13.47.1).

10. Note the similar foreshadowing in the case of C. Cassius, XVI.7.1, quod primum indicium mali, ‘the first indication of evil’.

11. For emphatic book endings see Kroll (above, note 5) 373–4; Syme (above, note 2) 1.262; Löfstedt, E., ‘On the Style of Tacitus’, JRS 38 (1948) 5Google Scholar.

12. Kroll (above, note 5) 373.

13. Kroymann (above, note 3) 135: ‘Hier scheint in der Distanzierung von volks-mässigen Prodigienglauben fast ein ironischer Unterton spürbar’.

14. Syme (above, note 2) 1.269, with note 5.

15. Ibid., II. 745.

16. Koestermann (above, note 9) 349.

17. See Goodyear (above, note 2) 18–20; Tresch, Jolanda, Die Nerobücher in den Annalen des Tacitus (Heidelberg 1965) 76Google Scholar.

18. Fetus, of trees, in the plural occurs mainly in poetry (e.g. Lucr. 1.351; Virg., G. 1.55 and 2.56; Ovid, Met. 1.104; Sen. Thy. 156, etc.). In prose authors this usage is rare and post-classical. The Thesaurus cites only three examples: Pliny, Nat. 17.11; Colum. 3.10.20 and 4.27.5. Cicero uses fetus once, in the singular, of trees, in a highly ornate simile: Brutus 16.

19. There is a good account of the question in Kroymann (above, note 3) 136–8; see also the references cited in the next note.

20. For a survey of this complex question see Scott, R. T., Religion and Philosophy in the Histories of Tacitus, American Academy in Rome, Papers and Monographs 22 (Rome 1968) 5–8Google Scholar and 53ff.; Borzsák (above, note 7) 494–6, especially 495; Burck, E., ‘Die Schicksalsauffassung des Tacitus und Statius’, Studies Presented to David Moore Robinson (St. Louis 1953) II. 693–701;Google ScholarLacroix, J., ‘Fatum et Fortuna dans l’oeuvre de Tacite’, REL 29 (1951) 247–64.Google Scholar

21. There are other significant prodigia in XV, notably in 34.1, 36, 47. See also below, note 29.

22. For the image of Rome as the gathering place of all the vices cf. also XV.44.4. Here, àpropos of the ‘destructive superstition’ (exitiabilis superstitio) of Christianity, Tacitus remarks that in Rome ‘everything outrageous or shameful flows and is amassed from all sides’ (cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque).

23. See Kroll (above, note 5) 373 and the discussion supra.

24. Attempts have been made to trace a development in Tacitus’ views on religion and fate, notably by R. Reitzenstein, but no fully satisfactory results have been achieved: see the discussion in Kroymann (above, note 3) 155ff.

25. Tacitus returns to the theme of the weakness of the Senate and its responsibility for Nero’s worsening reign: XIV.60.1 and 64.6. The latter passage is very emphatic: ‘Nor yet shall we be silent if any decree of the Senate was original in its adulation or reached the final point in its submissive endurance’ (Neque tamen silebimus si quod senatus consultum adulatione novum aut patientia postremum fuerit). In XIV.28 Tacitus briefly reports a legal measure which increases the dignity and authority of the Senate, but gives it no special emphasis.

26. Walker, B., The Annals of Tacitus (Manchester 1952) 79.Google Scholar

27. At the same time, one must note that Tacitus does not endorse this prodigium entirely, even though he is willing to exploit the suggestive atmosphere it brings his narrative. On his concern to set himself apart from the common opinion in this passage see Kroymann (above, note 3) 135, 157–8

28. On this much discussed phrase see Scott (above, note 20) 124–5, with note 34; Kroymann (above, note 3) 143; Burck (above, note 20) 697ff. For the theme of the ‘anger of the gods’ against Rome cf. esp. Hist. 1.3.3; Ann. [V.1.3, XVI.16.3. For other passages and further discussion see Burck, 697ff.; Kroymann 130–33; Walker (above, note 26) 252–4.

29. There is another important instance of divine forces operating against Nero in these books: in XV.36.3 Nero is seized by a sudden and fearful trembling just after visiting the temple of Vesta. Here too Tacitus is careful to interweave the supernatural event with the psychology of the emperor and the ‘inner’ dimension of the degradation and the decline of his principate: illic veneratus deos, cum Vestae quoque templum inisset, repente cunctos per anus tremens seu numine exterrente, seu facinorum recordatione numquam timore vacuus, deseruit inceptum … (‘There, after worshipping the gods, when he had entered the temple of Vesta too, suddenly trembling in all his limbs, whether because the divinity was causing him terror or because his recollection of his crimes left him never free of fear, he abandoned his undertaking …’).

30. Even here, however, Tacitus’ praise of the army is not uncritical, as his presentation of the Pisonian conspiracy in XV shows. See Burck (above, note 20) 695: ‘Selbst das Heer, das an den Grenzen zumeist noch seinen Mann steht und den letzten Rest der alten virtus und gloria des Römertums verkörpert, ist doch oft genug, namentlich in den Reihen der kaiserlichen Garde, mehr von politischen Konspirationen als vom Geist altrömischer Disziplin erfüllt.’

31. Syme (above, note 2) 11.745.

32. Suet., Aug. 92: grandis ilex coaluerat inter saxa (‘A great oak grew up among the rocks’). Cf. also Colum. 2.6.3; Pliny Nat. 13.32; Quint. Inst. 1.5.65; also Sail. Jug. 93.4; Ovid A.A. 2.649.

33. Note also the background of the vast and remote geography of Ocean in XIII.53.3.

34. For these metaphors, used largely of ‘wild and unhealthy passion’, see Walker (above, note 26) 65, with note 1. Ann. III.54.2 contains an especially full development of the figure.

35. Koestermann (above, note 9) 347 (ad XIII.57.3) also seeks to connect the fires of XIII.57 with events in book XIV, though his connection is perhaps too limited. He suggests ‘dass Tacitus die Geschichte am Ende des 13. Buches eingelegt hat, weil er sie als Vorzeichen betrachtete für das grausige Ende der Kaiserinmutter, dessen Wiedergabe die ersten Kapitel des 14. Buches ausfüllt.’

36. On the effect of a personal judgment of this nature in Tacitus’ otherwise cool and removed narrative see the fine remark of Seel, Otto, Verschlüsselte Gegenwart: Drei Interpretationen antiker Texte (Stuttgart 1972) 113Google Scholar: ‘Tacitus is a serious and indeed severe thinker, lofty, distanced, reserved, a master of small gestures, matter-of-fact, cool. Everything emotional and involving feeling is pushed into the background. But then, unexpectedly, there come passages in which as if under an enormous pressure the almost pretentious crust of dignity, objectivity, and disinterestedness splits apart and there breaks forth the molten lava, dark and burning, of a surprisingly impassioned soul’ (… aber dann kommen unversehens Stellen, an denen wie unter einem enormen Druck die fast prätentiöse Kruste von Würde, Objektivität und Teilnahmslosigkeit zerbricht und die glutflüssige Lava einer unerhört leidensfähigen Seele düster und brennend hervortritt’).

37. For this contrast in Tacitus between uncorrupted barbarians and the vices of Rome see Walker (above, note 26) 30, 33–4, 225–9; Syme (above, note 2) II.530–1; Norden (above, note 8) 95; Pöschl, V., ‘Tacitus und der Untergang des römischen Reiches’, WS 69 (1956) (Festschrift A. Lesky) 310–20Google Scholar, especially 315ff.

38. XIV.3.7; 12; 14.1; 22.6; 59.6; 64.4–5.

39. Aristotle, Poetics 1451 b5. The whole of this section (c.9, 1451 a36-b32) is of great interest for the affinities and differences between poetry and history.

40. Leo, Friedrich, ‘Tacitus’ (1896), Ausgewählte kleine Schriften, ed. E. Fraenkel (Rome 1960) 273Google Scholar: ‘Tacitus war ein Dichter, einer der wenigen grossen Dichter, die das römische Volk besessen hat. Es ist bedeutsam für die Geschichte des griechischen wie des römischen Geistes, dass der grösste griechische Philosoph und der grösste römische Historiker ganz au verstehen sind nur, wenn man sie als Dichter versteht. The whole of Leo’s essay (263–76 = Tacitus, ed. Pöschl, above note 3, 1–15) is valuable for its emphasis on the ‘poetic’ side of Tacitus’ history.